Parker Quink Permanent: iron gall or pigment?

[matteob]

Sorry if this has been asked before but is Quink Permanent iron gall or nano particle based and does one need to take extra precautions like more regular flushing with it?

[Mercian]

If you are asking about vintage formulations of Quink, I can’t help you.

 

That said, no currently-produced Parker Quink is ‘permanent’.

There used to be a ‘Washable Black’, a ‘Black’, a ‘Washable Blue’, and a ‘Blue’.

The colours that are listed as ‘Washable’ are/were formulated to come out of clothes easily (to prevent dry-cleaning claims from customers).

 

Those that are not listed as ‘Washable’ are e.g. not waterproof, and they may not be very lightfast either. I think that the difference is that they may contain slightly more dye than their ‘Washable’ equivalents, and that Parker therefore doesn’t make any claim that they will come out of clothes easily.

 

I have both types of Blue Quink, and cartridges of Black of various vintages.

I also have some cartridges of the current ‘Blue Black’ Quink.

That’s not water-resistant or lightfast either.

 

[matteob]

Ahhh I see on some places there is permanent blue, black and blue black and a washable. That answers my question: thanks!

[Mr.Rene]

Quink Blue Black Permanent ink was iron gall...but I am talking about old formula 1940-50´s years.

Actual Parker inks are classic dye base formula...

Best Regards.

[arcfide]

@Mr.Rene Can you provide a source for information about Parker Quink Blue Black ink being IG back in the day? Waterman Blue Black was, and I think Sheaffer was as well, but all my research about Parker's Quink line was that they were dye-based and non-IG from the start (I think they were intentionally positioning themselves against the crop of IG inks of the time, IIUC). I'd be really interested to learn about a Parker Quink IG ink from back in the day. 

 

8 hours ago, matteob said:

Ahhh I see on some places there is permanent blue, black and blue black and a washable. That answers my question: thanks!

 

For a little more detail on this, back in the day, when Parker Quink established its permanent and washable monikers, they were using the concept as it relates to clothing, but also in some respects to paper. The difference is that back then, the standard for permanence was a little different. There were no pigmented inks that were fountain pen safe, and the standard for lightfastness was also quite different. There were many inks that were made over those times that were quite fade-prone. 

 

Parker Quink Black ink today, along with the similarly formulated (but probably not identical) Waterman Black, are both more water resistant than you might initially expect, and they are competitive with other standard black inks in their lightfastness, but they aren't archivally permanent in the way that we often consider today. At the time, permanent inks were held to a lesser standard. Even so, if you only get some water splashed on the page, Parker Black goes blue, rather than fading instantly, while if you expose it to the sun, it goes brown, but not as quickly as some other inks. It's not a bad ink, but it has to be taken for what it is. 

 

The good thing is that it's an exceptionally well-behaved and safe ink in the pen and will treat the internals of your pen quite well. It was one of the first inks that made a big deal about "cleaning while you write" because of the extra additives that kept the ink flowing well. 

[inkstainedruth]

I have used a lot of vintage Quink inks (the curved square bottom bottles from the 1940s).  And I have Permanent Royal Blue in a pen at the moment (turns out I have a couple of bottles of the Permanent Blue-Black, but apparently haven't tried it).  I can say that I have seen no evidence of either Permanent Royal Blue or Microfilm Black changing color/fading the way I do with any of the (modern) IG inks I have; ditto for other "permanent" colors of Quink from that era.  

But now you've got me curious.  So I will ink up a pen at some point this week with some of the 1940s-era Permanent Blue-Black and see how it behaves, and report back.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth